Month: February 2016

Lately, when I’m not reading I’m watching movies, A LOT of movies! And I wanted to talk about the movies I have watched with you guys and I also about the movies you have watched lately, so I decided to write this post to start a conversation about them.

1) The Man from U.N.C.L.E (Rating:B-)

Released in: 2015

I actually didn’t want to watch this movie, but a friend wanted to, so I ended up watching it with her. And it turned out to be better that I expected. It was actually funny, not always, but there were funny bits, and there was a twist that I didn’t see coming at the end. I usually don’t like movies that mix spies and comedy, but this one was good.

I had watched Episode IV, but I had never watched the other ones. The thing that impressed me the most about these movies was the universe they took place in, I just thought it was really imaginative. I loved learning about the different species and the different planets. I really liked the chracters, especially the not human ones. And the relationship between Han and Leia was perfect. all the snark and the fighting.

5) Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (Rating: B+)

Released in: 2015

This movie was a really good movie. There were so many things I loved about it, especially the characters and especially Rey. Nonetheless, I had watched the original trilogy right before watching this, and I have to say, when I watched this movie I felt like I was watching the same movie again. It had a lot of common elements, and I felt like they didn’t take any real risk with this. I think I would have loved this way more, if I hadn’t watch the other ones right beofre watching this.

6) Still Alice (Rating: A)

Released in: 2014

This movie made me cry so much! I think it was one of the best movies I have watched in a while. Julianne Moore was phenomenal in this, actually, the whole cast did a really good job. The writing was amazing, too. I ended up knowing a lot more about Alzheimer and it’s such a terrifying disease. I totally recommend this!

7) Inside Llewyn Davis (Rating: C+)

Released in: 2013

This was a really depressing movie. The acting in it blew me away and the music was unbelievably good. But, it was just such a depressing movie, I didn’t enjoy watching it at all. And I know the movie wasn’t trying to entertain or be enjoyable, but still…

8) The Wolf of Wall Street (Rating: C+)

Released in: 2013

The best part of this movie was the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio gave a very energetic performance, and the other cast memebers did a really good job as well. The Wolf of Wall Street was a very exuberant and over the top movie, I just felt like it was missing some emotional dept.

9) The Martian (Rating: A)

Released in: 2015

I loved this movie! It was really funny, but it also kept me in the edge of my sit with worry. The acting was outstanding; Matt Damon gave a really charming performance even if the character was in a very dire situation. Also, the cinematography was spectacular.

10) The Fight Club (Rating: D)

Released in: 1999

I watched this movie because my boyfriend loves it, but I really didn’t enjoy it at all. The only thing I actually liked was the big reveal at the end, because I didn’t see it coming. Honestly, this was an ode to man’s stupidity, and also can I say manic dream pixie girl alert!

11) Joy (Rating: B)

Released in: 2015

I’m gonna start by saying the obvious, Jennifer Lawrence is such a talented actress, and she proved it again in this movie. The acting in general was really good, but it was mainly Jennifer Lawrence that kept this movie afloat. This movie is a bit of a mess, but still a really entertaining one.

12) Spotlight (Rating: A)

Released in: 2015

This movie is amazing! I wanted to watch this movie since the moment the first trailer came out. Great performances, a really interesting topic, it was really thought- provoking… it was just so good!

13) Steve Jobs (Rating: B-)

Released in: 2015

This movie was a bit frenetic, but the acting was marvelous. The problem I had with this movie was that it tried to tell the life-story of Steve Jobs by telling the story of 3 days of his life, so I felt like there was something missing.

14) The Big Short (Rating: B)

Released in: 2015

I watched this movie because my boyfriend wanted to watch it. Still, I really liked it, there were some amazing performances in it, I thought it was an interesting movie that made me understand better what happened during the economic crisis. If you want to understand this movie, you have to pay a lot of attention, so if don’t like complicated movies that make you think a lot, I wouldn’t recommend this.If you have watched any of this movies, tell me you thoughts! Tell me about the movies you have watched lately, did you like them or not?

Good Books / Bad Covers is a new feature/weekly meme here at Bookish Wanderess. The idea behind it is to say “Hey, I know this book has a really bad cover, but the book itself is really good. You should read it!” So every monday I will be choosing one book or book series that I read and really liked, but it has a really bad cover, and I will talk about why that book deserves a chance even if the cover is so bad that I wouldn’t pick the book up in a bookstore even if it was free. Everyone is welcome to join this meme, I just ask that you link back to me in your post.

Hi guys! I’m glad to be back doing Good Books / Bad Covers! If you read my blog regularlly or follow me on twitter, you will know by now that I’m obssesed with fantasy books, both YA and adult. So I think it comes as no surprise that this week I chose another fantasy series to be on my Good Books/ Bad Covers post. I just love these books so much, that I would hate for someone not to read them because they have ugly covers. The series I chose is the Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson.

This is one of my favorite YA fantasy series of all times, I love so many things about it! Sadly, when you look at the covers, the greatness of the series get lost in the horrible backgrounds and creepy faces. Seriously, I would not pick up this on a bookstore/library.

With this covers, I understand why someone may not pick this series up in a bookstore. Before I give you the reason why I think you should ingore the covers and read the books, I’ gonna leave this here, it’s a list I wrote of 10 reason why you should read the first book “The Girl of Fire and Thorn”. Now, let’s get started about why you should forget the covers and read the entire series:

– There are a lot of amazing female characters through the series. They represent all kinds of girls and that’s amazing.

– The main characters are POC, even if it’s a fantasy world, the readers can tell that most of the characters are latinxs, which is great!

– The romance is amazing, it’s definitely a slow-burn romance that doesn’t start until “The Crown of Embers”.

– If you like character development, this book is perfect for you, because the main character Elisa, goes through a lot of it.

– There are a lot of great secondary characters, especially, Storm. You are just gonna love him, trust me!

– There’s a really strong political aspect to this series that makes it really entertaining. There’s a lot of political intrigue and maneuvering.

– Elisa is a Chosen One, but she has known all her life, so it’s really interesting to see the effects that has on her, all her doubts and the conflict of destiny vs choice.

– There’s an aspect of body issues that’s really well handled in this series, which it’s rarely seen in fantasy.

And that’s it! If you haven’t given this book a chance because of its cover, please do it!

I hope you enjoyed this post! If you make a Good Books/ Bad Covers post, please let me know in the comments, I would love to check it out!

Aerin could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it.It was the story of her mother, the witchwoman who enspelled the king into marrying her, to get an heir that would rule Damar; and it was told that she turned her face to the wall and died of despair when she found she had borne a daughter instead of a son.Aerin was that daughter.But there was more of the story yet to be told; Aerin’s destiny was greater than even she had dreamed–for she was to be the true hero who would wield the power of the Blue Sword…

When I started reading The Hero and The Crown, it took me a little bit to get used to the writing, I felt it wasn’t fluid and that didn’t let me connect with the story at first. But after a while, I got used to it, and I started to really enjoy this book. I really liked the main characters that were introduced at the beginning, I loved the development the main character, Aerin, went through, I loved everything that had to do with the dragons (I had never read a book with dragons before!), I loved the relationship between Aerin and her horse, and I also loved the relationship between Aerin and her dad. I was actually really surprised about how much I was enjoying this book, until a decisive plot point happened around 70% of the way through, and everything changed.

I still enjoyed the second part of the book, but a lot of things came out of nowhere. In this book, there was a big mystery and there was a subplot; in the first part there were no answers to the big mystery, instead it dealt mainly with the subplot that had to do with dragons. And it was amazing, all the things that happened to the main character were really entertaining to read about. Nonetheless, when the book got to the last 30%, it went in a completely random direction that felt disconnected from the first part. It wasn’t a natural progression to the story, there was no foreshadowing to what happened, the subplot was almost completely abandoned during the second part, other characters showed up out of nowhere, and sudenly there was magic and everything could be solved with it. So, I really didn’t enjoy this part as much as the beginning.

Overall, I would say that, the first 70% of this book was amazing, the next 25% was not that good, and the last 5% was alright. I would recommend this to someone who likes fantasy and wants to read a classic fantasy book, and see where a lot of the tropes come from. Actually, it’s really interesting because there’s a really popular book that I thought it had a really original ending, and it’s actually very similar to the ending of this book. I will leave you with that information, if you are curious about which book it is, you should check this book out!

Rating :3,7 Stars

Have you read this book? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments!

Good Books / Bad Covers is a new feature/weekly meme here at Bookish Wanderess. The idea behind it is to say “Hey, I know this book has a really bad cover, but the book itself is really good. You should read it!” So every monday I will be choosing one book or book series that I read and really liked, but it has a really bad cover, and I will talk about why that book deserves a chance even if the cover is so bad that I wouldn’t pick the book up in a bookstore even if it was free. Everyone is welcome to join this meme, I just ask that you link back to me in your post.

Hi guys! After my absence last week, I’m finally here with a new Good Books/ Bad Covers post. This week I chose an amazing adult fantasy book that a lot of people that like fantasy have read and love. I chose this book for 2 reason: 1) I think if someone saw this book in a bookstore and didn’t know what it’s about they wouldn’t buy it, and 2) I feel like a lot of people may have heard how amazing this book is, and they still haven’t read it because of the cover. The book I’m talking about is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first book in The Kingkiller Chronicle series.

This book is brilliant, but if you look at the cover you wouldn’t know that! The first cover, the blue one, is just a simple, boring cover, with bad color choices. The second one, with the weird red hair dude, is terrible, the worst of all the covers, I would never pick up that book in a bookstore. And the last one, is the best one for me, I just think it’s the one I would be more likely to pick up in a bookstore. But my main problem with the three covers is that they don’t really say anything about the story and they don’t do it justice.

With this covers, I understand why someone may not pick this book up in a bookstore, but here are some reason to ignore the covers and read the book: – The main reason to read this book is the amazing writing. Patrick Rothfuss is a really talented storyteller. – You get two stories in one book, because the main character is telling his story to someone, so he is talking about the past, but you also see what it’s happening in the present while he tells the story.– It’s has a very interesting concept that’s different from other epic fantasy, because it doesn’t focus on a single epic action or task the main character has to accomplish. This series is the life story of the main character, and this book is about his childhood and the beginning of his teen years, and what this means is that it revolves around the epic and the not so epic moments in his life. – The world building is very precise and full of details, but that doesn’t make this book boring because it’s a very interesting and intriguing world and you just want to know more.

– The magic system in this book is stunning, it’s just so complex and beautiful at the same time.

And that’s it! If you haven’t given this book a chance because of its cover, please do it!

I hope you enjoyed this post! If you make a Good Books/ Bad Covers post, please let me know in the comments, I would love to check it out!

I have been thinking about writing this for a long time. I feel like my reading taste and the way I rate books has changed so much over time, and the ratings I give to books depends so much on my mood, that sometimes I feel bad when I rate them. I feel bad because sometimes books I like so much more than others end up with the same rating or with a lower rating, because I read them at different points of my life or because I read one of them when I was in a reading slump and the other when I was not, or because I rate genres differently. It’s just thatthere are so many things that affect the rating of a book that have nothing to do with the book, and sometimes I feel like I’m being unfair.

Ratings get harsher as time goes by

I feel like I’m more critical when I rate books now, than, let’s say, when I started to rate books on Goodreads. Being older has come with changes in the way I see the world, the things I consider important, I have also had time to read more and learn what I like and what I don’t. The change in the ratings has to do with a lot of things, and sometimes I feel like it’s not fair to some books. This situation has got to the point were I have been tempted to go back and change the rating I gave a book I read years ago. The thing is I think that’s not fair either, because even if now my reading taste has change or I have read more and I can see that maybe that book wasn’t as good as I though it was back when I first rated it, I think it’s not fair to the book that I change the rating after years, when I don’t even remember the book so well, and I don’t remember how I felt when I read it or what I thought when I read it.

Ratings are different for different genres

Also, I feel like sometimes I ask more of some genres and I go easy on some others. Fantasy is my favorite genre, and I have read some amazing fantasy books and I even have some categories that I rate when I’m read this genre. Sometimes, I’m really harsh with some fantasy book, simply because I have read great fantasy! On the other hand, I read YA contemporary and new adult, and I rate them mostly based on the level of entreteinment they provided. Sometimes, fantasy books that I liked more than some contemporary or new adult book, get the same rating.

For example, I read Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes and I gave it a 3 or a 3,5 stars. I felt like it wasn’t as good and I had a lot of little problems with it. Nonetheless, I still feel like I liked it more and it gave me more than a lot of the new adult books I have read and that have the exact same rating. Nonetheless, I also know that books from one genre and from the other are trying to accomplish different things, and that’s why sometimes I’m more critical with some book than others.

Ratings depend of other things as well

The thing is, in the example of Falling Kingdoms, I didn’t rate the book only thinking about the genre it belong to. When I read the book, I was in the middle of a reading slump, so that affected the way I felt towards the books and it affected the rating it got. And that’s my last point, there are other factors, like mood and life situations, that affect the way I rate books and there’s not really anything I can do about that. Sometimes I use reading as an escape and I read when I’m in a bad place with my family or with school, and that affects the rating the book gets, but I’m not gonna stop reading because of that. And this can go both ways, sometimes my life isn’t in a good place, and a book helps through that and it makes me feel better, so it gets a higher rating.

So…

That’s why sometimes I feel bad rating books. After thinking about it, I feel like I need to rate books based on what they intended to do (entertain, make you think, confront you with something, make you believe in the impossible), and that includes rating books according to the genre they belong to (because the authors have to do different things depending on what genre they are writing). I have not found a definitive solution to this problems I found while rating books. Nonetheless, what I have been doing lately is trying to give books more especific ratings, not only giving 3/ 3.5/4, but also 3.7 /4.2/4.7. It just something I’m doing to try and say more with my rating, and it actually has help me calm my anxiety over this issue. I don’t if it would work for anyone else, but for me it has help a little.

Let me know your thoughts about this, I really woud like to know! how do you rate books? what external factors affect your ratings? If you have made blog post discussing how you rate books or anything related to the subject, let me a link!

This tag was created by Emma @Emmmabooks, and it’s a tag to talk about all the book related things we think totally should’ve happened. I have seen this go around booktube, and it look like so much fun that I decided to do it!

1. Totally should’ve gotten a sequelIt’s not really a sequel, it’s more like a continuation of some of the stories in My True Love gave to Me. I didn’t like all the stories in this book, but there were some incredible ones, and I want more.

2. Totally should’ve had a spin off series

The Darkest Minds! I want at least a short story about Vida and Chub’s roadtrip. But if we could get something else centering around them, it would be amazing!

3. An author who totally should write more booksI want to read something by Marissa Meyer that isn’t part of the Lunar Chronicles. Don’t get me wrong, I love that series, but I want to see what other worlds and characters can she create.

4. A character who totally should’ve ended up with someone elseI’m usually ok with whatever couple is canon, but when I’m ask this question I always say Katniss, not because I wanted her to end up with Gale. I just didn’t want her to end up with Peeta. Actually, I wanted a completely different ending for her!

5. Totally should’ve ended differently

Mockingjay. Like I said in the last answer I wanted a completely different ending for Katniss. When I read it, I didn’t like the ending at all. I don’t know if I read it now I would feel different, but going with my original feelings about the ending, I would change it!

6. Totally should’ve had a movie franchise

I don’t now if franchice, because book two isn’t even out yet. Nonetheless, I want Vicious to be made into a movie. I think it would be amazing!

7. Totally should’ve had a TV show

Maybe the Throne of Glass series. Everytime I think about an adaptation of this series, it gets me excited and nervious. If they do a tv show that’s more Game of Thrones than Shadowhunters, I think I would be alright with that.

8. Totally should’ve had only one point of view

I can’t think of an answer… the only book that comes to mind is Allegiant, but I didn´t finish it. Actually I didn’t make it that far into the book, but for what I read, I think one point of view would have been better.

9. Totally should have a cover change

If you saw the first post of Good Books/ Bad Covers, you know my answer to this is the Vampire Academy series/ Bloodline series. I really don’t like covers with creepy faces on them!

10. Totally should’ve kept the original covers

Me and Earl and The Dying Girl! The original is very vibrant and it has a lot of colors, and it just makes you want to read this book. The new covers are alright, but they are nothing special.

11. Totally should’ve stopped at book one

I don’t think it should have stopped at book one, but I do think the Mythos Academy series should have been a three or four book series. I really liked the first few books, but the last few books weren’t that good.

I’ve been gone this week, because I have had so much Uni stuff to do! I had an exam, two papers, a quiz and a presentation… It’s like all my teachers decided to make this the worst week. Anyway, I’m all done with that now, and I just wanted to let you guys know what I have been reading lately and what I will be reading this weekend. I usually don’t do #FridayReads, because I only read one book at a time, but this weekend I’m gonna be reading a few book and I thought it was a good idea to make this post. Also, I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be posting a lot this weekend trying to make up for the lack of posts during the week.

Actually, I wasn’t really reading anything this week, because like I said I was really busy. But, the week before this one, I started to read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and I read like 10% and then I had to stop, but I will continue reading it this weekend.

What I can say about the 10% I read, it’s that the writing is incredible and the story is really interesting.

Also, I got Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin from my library (Finally!), so I read like 10 pages, because I was so excited about it. A big part of my weekend will be dedicated to reading this, but it has 800 pages, so I think I will read it slowly.

And lastly, I will be reading We Just Clicked by Sophie Childs, an ARC I received through Netgalley that I need to review.

Please, let me know what are you gonna read this weekend! And if you have read any of the books I will be reading, let me know your thoughts.

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About

Hi! I'm Sofia, I'm 23 and I'm from Colombia.

I often get lost wandering through the pages of books and the scenes in movies and tv shows. I blog mainly about books, but from time to time you will find posts about other things I love. I hope you have fun!